


Beauty and Grace

by onceuponanevilangel



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Inspired by a Movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 23:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11885601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponanevilangel/pseuds/onceuponanevilangel
Summary: After a mission gone wrong lands Peggy in hot water at the SSR, she's desperate for any opportunity to prove herself again. Well, almost any opportunity. A new mission requires an undercover agent in the Miss United States pageant and Peggy is less than thrilled to fill those high-heeled shoes, but she quickly learns that there's much more to the pageant and the contestants than what she suspected. Now if she can just figure out which one is a secret Russian agent...(The Miss Congeniality-inspired AU that no one asked for)





	Beauty and Grace

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally had the notes for this fic written for over a year now, so we can skip the fanfare. It's here at long last and it is unbeta-ed (and sparsely edited) as per usual.
> 
> This is a Miss Congeniality-inspired AU. So I've taken some creative liberties already and there are more changes to come in future chapters, but if you've seen the movie, you'll have a general idea of where this is going. Hope you still enjoy the ride though!

Peggy knew from the moment that she woke up that the day was not going to be a very good one.

The first sign was the text she saw as soon as she picked up her phone.

_Hey Marge. Coffee duty. 8am briefing. Don’t be late._

Peggy rolled her eyes; she had half a mind to tell Thompson exactly where he could shove his coffee duty, but she was already in hot water with the chief and pissing off his golden boy this early on a Monday morning was probably not going to help things.

The second sign that her day was going to be bad came when she realized that it was already 7:30 and there was absolutely no way that she was going to make it in on time.

Especially when she found herself at the end of a very long line of frazzled business people who were all taking their bloody time deciding what they wanted. By the time she made it to the front of the line, she could feel her phone buzzing in her pocket, helpfully informing her that she was already late.

“Wow, you look like you could use something extra sweet right now.”

It took a moment for the barista’s words to register and Peggy looked up from her list of coffee orders to see a young woman with bright eyes and a sympathetic smile already brandishing a Sharpie and a to-go cup. “What can I get ya?” she asked.

Peggy paused for a moment to collect herself and looked back down at her list to rattle off the orders. The barista wasted no time in getting the drinks ready and sending them down the line, but just as Peggy was about to pay her, she turned around, grabbed something out of a box behind her, and dropped it into a paper bag on the counter.

“What’s that?” Peggy asked.

“Blueberry muffin?” the barista replied a little hesitantly. “No offense, but you look like you could use something a little more substantial than coffee right now and,” she glanced at her coworkers who were still busy with Peggy’s order before leaning a little bit closer and dropping her voice so the other customers couldn’t hear, “that came from yesterday’s batch. We can’t sell ‘em, but they’re still perfectly fine and I just try to save some before they get tossed. It’s yours if you want it. No charge.”

Peggy’s lips twitched just the slightest bit and she grabbed the bag as she handed the barista her card. The barista offered her a bright smile of her own.

“Have a good day, English,” she said.

“Thank you,” Peggy paused and glanced down at the barista’s plastic name tag. “Angie.”

Peggy couldn’t think of anything else to say and besides, the line of caffeine-deprived commuters behind her was starting to grow, so she just gave one final nod of thanks and made her way to the other end of the counter to pick up the drinks.

She had two full drink holders in her hands with a ninth cup balanced precariously under her chin, but she somehow managed to make it out of the coffee shop and the full two blocks to the SSR office without spilling a single drop.

“Nice of you to finally join us, Carter.”

Peggy bristled at Chief Dooley’s tone, but she didn’t say anything as she set the drinks on the conference table and grabbed her own cup.

“Which is which?” Agent Thompson asked.

“I don’t know, I’m just the delivery girl,” Peggy replied, pulling her muffin out of its bag as she sat down in the empty chair. “I received a list of orders with no names and I did the best I could.”

“The best you could do is ten minutes late with a muffin for yourself?”

“I apologize. And here I thought we were all adults and I wasn’t required to bring enough for the whole class.”

Agent Sousa snorted and turned away, presumably so that Thompson didn’t see him laugh, but he wasn’t quick enough. Thompson glared at him and then turned back to Peggy.

“Carter, I – ”

“Alright, that’s enough out of both of you,” Dooley said, cutting Thompson off. “Read the cups, pass ‘em around, and shut up before I outlaw coffees in the office altogether. Any questions?”

No one said anything, but Peggy was rather pleased to see that Thompson was quite obviously stewing in his chair.

Sousa started grabbing the drinks and sliding them to their owners and it was only a few moments before all the other agents had their coffees and Dooley clapped his hands together.

“We all good now?” He looked pointedly at Thompson and Peggy, but both of them knew better than to say anything. “Great. Then let’s get back to the matter at hand, shall we? Sousa, what do you got?”

Sousa opened a file folder that was sitting on the table in front of him and slid copies of a single document to everyone sitting around the table.

“These are copies of a letter that Agent Carter found at the Leviathan safe house in Brooklyn that we infiltrated last week,” he explained. “It’s heavily encrypted and I haven’t been able to crack it yet, but I believe that based on the pattern of the last few Leviathan attacks, it’s safe to assume there’s information about their next move.”

“Hey, Sousa, wasn’t that the mission you almost got blown up on?” Agent Krzeminski asked.

“Yeah, because _Carter_ decided that swiping a few papers was more important than backing up her partner,” Thompson said coolly.

“Thompson,” Dooley warned.

“Without me, getting those papers we wouldn’t have found this letter,” Peggy snapped back around a bite of muffin.

“ _Carter._ ”

“Exactly and no harm done,” Sousa said. “Getting a prosthetic leg blown off in a trap is way less climactic than the real thing. I should know. Anyway, as I was saying, we’ve got no idea how this is encoded, but we can only assume that it was only meant to be read by other Leviathan agents, which makes it really tough to crack.”

“Has Rose gotten a look at this yet?” Peggy asked, studying the letter and frowning. “This code doesn’t look familiar but if anyone would be able to crack it, it would be her.”

“Sorry, Carter, this is authorized eyes only,” Thompson said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s my case, I pick the team, and this letter’s not getting passed around.”

Peggy barked out a laugh, spraying her copy of the letter with muffin crumbs.

“Something funny?” Thompson asked.

“No,” she said. “It’s just that this is supposed to be _my_ case and I believe that this letter should be seen by whoever has the best chance at decoding it.”

“But it’s not your case,” Thompson said. “If you’d have gotten here on time, you’d have known that.”

“Chief?” Peggy asked.

“He’s right,” Dooley said. He crossed his arms and fixed her with a steely gaze. “You may have gotten this letter into our hands which could turn out to be a huge break for us, but you also nearly got yourself and Agent Sousa killed, not to mention all the strings I had to pull to cover up the real reason why a warehouse in Brooklyn got blown up by an agency that barely exists. I’m sorry, Carter, but you’re benched for this one. Thompson’s taking the lead.”

“But Sir,” Peggy protested.

“No buts,” Dooley snapped. “We’re done here. Thompson, gather your team and I want a plan on my desk by the end of the day.”

With that, he stomped off and Peggy swore she could hear him mumbling about having “just one easy Monday” before the door to his office slammed shut.

“Alright, you heard the chief,” Thompson said, moving to the head of the conference table and splaying his hands on it as he swept his gaze across the other agents. “This is my op and I get to pick my team. Sousa, you want to run base here?”

“You got it,” Sousa said with a nod.

 “Good. So for the rest of you, here’s how this is going to work.” Thompson grabbed one of the copies of the encrypted letter and brandished it like a weapon. “I need this code broken fast. We can’t make a move against Leviathan before we know what they’re planning, so whoever can accurately decrypt this for me first is on the team.”

“That’s it?” Agent Yauch asked.

“That’s it,” Thompson confirmed.

“What if we can’t crack it?” Krzeminski asked.

“Then you join Carter at the desk, better luck next time.”

“And if _I_ crack it first,” Peggy said.

Thompson paused, straightened up, and crossed his arms like he was only just considering that outcome.

“Then I’ll bring you on,” he said after a moment.

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure. If you can prove to me that you’re worth having on this team, I’ll talk to the chief and see if I can’t get him to let you come along. So you meatheads all know the drill, let’s get to work. Dismissed.”

The other agents all started to clear out of the room, but Peggy and Sousa stayed behind, both staring at their own copies of the Leviathan letter and ignoring the way that Thompson was glaring at them.

Thompson didn’t say anything else to either of them. Instead, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room with a swagger unbefitting a man who had just left his half-full coffee cup on the conference table.

“Should we tell him?” Sousa asked, glancing from the cup to Peggy.

There was a small metal trash can in the corner and Peggy didn’t say anything; she just stood up, kicked the can closer to the table, and smiled brightly at Sousa as she gracefully swept Thompson’s cup off the table and into the trash can.

“Tell him what?” she asked with an innocent shrug.

Sousa laughed and Peggy felt herself start to smile as she tossed her muffin wrapper and her crumpled paper takeout bag into the trash before kicking it back into its place. Then she grabbed her own coffee and her copy of the letter and walked out of the conference room.

“Good luck!” Sousa called after her. “If I get stuck working with Krzeminski or Yauch on this one I’m blaming you!”

“Oh, empty threats,” Peggy murmured as she took another sip of her coffee.

* * *

 

Peggy spent the rest of her morning at her desk, analyzing the letter with every code she could possibly think of, but by the time her lunch break rolled around, she was still no closer to cracking it and a hell of a lot closer to just giving up and letting someone else put up with Thompson’s bravado.

“Hey, Carter. Any progress?”

“Speak of the devil,” she muttered before spinning around in her chair to face Agent Thompson who thankfully hadn’t heard her. “Nothing yet,” she said. “But I’m not quite out of ideas.”

“Sure you aren’t,” Thompson said. “I take it you don’t have any big lunch plans today then?”

“Nothing that can’t be moved for the threat of an impending Leviathan attack,” Peggy quipped.

“Good. Chief wants these filed before he leaves today and since you’ve been benched for the time being…” Thompson trailed off as he dropped a hefty stack of file folders onto her desk. “Old case files that got mixed up when we went digital,” he explained. “The chief wants them cataloged and re-filed so they can get moved to the archives and I’d do it myself, but I can’t today and besides, you’re really so much better at that sort of thing.”

“What, the alphabet?”

“I’m choosing to ignore that because I’m rushin’, but you still have to get those done,” Thompson said sternly as he swept out of the bullpen.

Peggy snorted as she spun back around and picked up the first file on the stack. “Rushing out on his break, can’t even read the bloody files, I’ll show him rushing, I…”

She trailed off, set the file folder back down, and slowly reached for the Leviathan letter.

“You can’t be serious,” she breathed, not quite sure whether she was speaking more to herself or to the piece of paper in her hands.

She snatched her pen up and began to write directly on the page, her hand struggling to keep up with her brain until finally, _finally…_

“I did it,” she said, her voice low with disbelief.

She walked brusquely towards Chief Dooley’s office door which was already open just a crack. She knocked and waited until she heard a gruff, “What?” to step inside.

“What is it, Carter, I’m busy,” Dooley said, sparing only a brief glance up from his paperwork.

“I know, sir, but I thought you might want to see this.”

She set the decoded letter on the desk and slid it towards him. He grabbed it and she watched as he scanned the page. After a moment, he set it down and looked seriously at Peggy.

“You sure you got this right?” he asked.

“I’m certain,” she said. “We may be facing domestic threats from Leviathan, but they’re a Russian organization, so it would only make sense that any messages they’re sending would be written in Russian originally and then encoded. I just can’t believe it took so long to figure out.”

“Nice work, Carter,” Dooley said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Where the hell’s Thompson?”

“No idea, sir. He left for his lunch break and he didn’t say when he’d be back.”

“Well as soon as he gets back, I want you two, Sousa, and anyone else on Thompson’s team in here. We need a game plan as soon as possible. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Peggy said with a nod.

“Good. Dismissed.”

Peggy headed back into the bullpen, easing the chief’s door shut behind her. She made her way back to her desk and was about to sit down, but she stopped herself and instead picked up the stack of file folders Thompson had left her. She crossed over to his desk, dropped them from a little bit higher up than necessary, and then returned to her own desk to sit down.

She was pretty sure that only one of them needed the alphabet practice at the moment.

* * *

“The Miss United States pageant.”

“Yes.”

“ _The_ Miss United States pageant?”

“Yes.”

“They’re planning on attacking a beauty pageant?”

“Yes, Agent Thompson,” Peggy said. She had to fight hard against the urge to roll her eyes. “You asking that repeatedly is not going to change anything. It’s right there in the Leviathan letter.”

She, Thompson, and Sousa had all gathered in Chief Dooley’s office to discuss the contents of the translated letter. Even though Peggy hadn’t officially been added to the team yet, she had done the translating and despite Thompson’s clear disdain for the idea, Dooley had told her to come too.

She had to admit, it had been more than a little satisfying to see the looks of shock and perhaps a bit of jealousy on the faces of the other agents when she was let in.

Sousa had made himself comfortable in one of the chairs in front of Chief Dooley’s desk. Peggy had chosen to lean against the door in lieu of claiming the other chair. Thompson was pacing back and forth in front of the window, and meanwhile, Dooley was sitting at his desk not saying a word, but looking very much like he was considering early retirement.

“Let me see that.” Thompson snatched the decrypted letter off of the desk and read it for the second time since he, Sousa, and Peggy had assembled in Dooley’s office. “They’re staging a demonstration at the Miss United States finals,” he said. “A demonstration of what? What the hell does this even mean?”

“I don’t know, Jack,” Sousa said. “Maybe we’d better launch an op and find out.”

Peggy choked back a laugh and one side of Chief Dooley’s mouth twitched. Thompson just scowled and crossed his arms.

“Well we know that Leviathan has used female undercover operatives in the past, so I don’t think it would be ridiculous to assume they have a girl entered in the pageant already,” Peggy said. “Whether she’s actually the one carrying out the demonstration or just a diversion, it might be worth our while to find her.”

“Find the mole, find the plan,” Sousa continued. “That’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, except we’ve got one problem,” Thompson said. “The pageant starts in three days. There’s no way we can interview every girl or run background checks or anything like that without delaying or canceling things.”

“Since when are you concerned with delaying or canceling a beauty pageant?” Sousa asked.

“Since about the time I realized that if Carter’s right and Leviathan’s got a girl planted in the pageant, even the slightest hitch might tip our hand,” Thompson explained. “We’ve got to go into this carefully and see how much we can gather without giving ourselves away.”

Peggy frowned. “So then what are you proposing? That we just sit on our hands and hope the mole comes forward?”

“No,” Thompson said. “On the contrary, actually.” He stopped his pacing and turned to Dooley. “Sir, I think we need to beat them at their own game. I say we plant our own girl in the pageant. We gather as much intel as we can from the outside while our agent gets in good with the other girls, sniffs out the Leviathan mole, and hopefully find out what’s happening before it happens.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Dooley said. “Who’ve you got in mind?”

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” Thompson said.

“Well we’ve kind of got a limited pool here,” Sousa said. He paused and turned in his chair so that he could look Peggy up and down. He seemed to be deep in thought, but before he could say anything, Peggy shook her head.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“I didn’t even say anything yet,” Sousa protested.

“But I know exactly what you’re thinking and I am absolutely not doing it.”

“You know what?” Thompson was studying Peggy now too. “You might be our best bet, Carter. You’re one hell of an undercover agent. Just lose the accent, put on a sparkly dress, and you’d probably fit right in.”

Peggy glared at him and started to open her mouth, but she couldn’t find a suitable comeback.

“What do you think, Chief?” Thompson asked. “You benched her, so it’s your call, but I think it might be an option worth exploring.”

Chief Dooley paused, sighed, and stared Peggy right in the eyes like he knew exactly how she was going to respond.

“It sounds pretty good to me,” he said. “And it sounds like a safer option than just waiting until the final and sending my agents into a situation that might turn sour and end up with a leg getting blown off.”

Sousa was quiet, but he waved his crutch like a white flag.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Dooley continued, “I think this is your chance to make up for last week’s disaster, Carter. I want a meeting with the pageant directors before we proceed, but you can either take this assignment or you’re at your desk for the next month and Thompson can pick a different approach.”

“But sir,” Peggy protested.

“Yes or no,” Dooley said. “What’s it gonna be?”

“Fine,” Peggy snapped.

“Alright, then we’re done here. The three of you can work out the rest.”

Sousa was already up and Peggy held the door open for him before following him. She could hear Thompson behind her, but before he made it out, he was stopped by the sound of Dooley’s voice and naturally, Peggy and Sousa stopped to listen.

“Oh, Thompson?”

Thompson paused in the doorway and turned back into the office. “Yeah, sir?”

“I told you I wanted those old cases cataloged and re-filed _today,_ didn’t I?”

“You did,” Thompson said.

“Then what the hell are they doing scattered all over your damn desk?” Dooley asked, gesturing at the precariously-balanced stack of folders Peggy had left on the edge of his desk which was clearly visible from Dooley’s open door. “If you can’t even finish the paperwork I give you when I give it to you, I’ll make sure to hand this op and any others like it over to someone who can handle the workload. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now get the hell outta my sight.”

The office door slammed shut behind Thompson much harder than it needed to, but Dooley didn’t say anything about it. For his part, neither did Thompson, but he did shoot Peggy a dirty look as he sat down. She smirked back at him as she passed by on the way to her own, now-paperwork-free desk and sat down.

Well, at least _something_ had worked out in her favor today. She supposed a small victory was better than nothing at all.


End file.
